BY ALEX JOHNSON

They poop on heads, they steal food, they fly into faces, and they are not so affectionately referred to as rats with wings. However, pigeons thrive where almost no other bird has been able to exist throughout history; cities. These birds have a unique set of traits that not only allows them to exist in urban areas, but actively draws them to cities by the millions.

The pigeon has a wing-up on other bird species for two main reasons; they were formally domesticated by humans, and they have specific biology that allows them to successfully breed and survive in cities.

One key history lesson lies in the domestication of the pigeon thousands of years ago. Can we really blame these birds for thriving where humans exist, when our histories have been so intertwined? Pigeons were the very first bird that humans domesticated, and are depicted on ancient Mesopotamian tablets more than 5,000 years old. In the words of Colin Jerolmack, a professor at New York University and author of “The Global Pigeon”, pigeons are artificial creatures, and only exist by virtue of human beings.

Humans have had a relationship with these birds as pets, sources of food, sacred animals, and post carriers for most of our modern history, and certainly as long as cities have existed. They are heavy-bodied, and have a large amount of meat for their size. This makes them an ideal food source. Pigeons are also very beautiful birds, and were often kept as pets to be admired. In fact, the true wild type pigeon is now thought to be extinct, and replaced entirely with the domesticated subspecies.

There are the usual reasons for domestication, but pigeons have gone beyond the realm of chickens and other domesticated birds, because they have a very unique set of skills. The Boston Pigeon Concourse is an organization involved in a sport that is alive and well today, pigeon racing. Racers all drive their birds to a single location, and release them all at once. The birds fly home, and a monitor clocks a pigeon’s time when they land in their roost. The distance of the race is divided by this time, and bird with the fastest average flying speed wins.

The time it takes to finish a race is much shorter than most would expect, and they usually only take a day. Stephen DeFrancesco, president of the Boston Pigeon Concourse, speaks to this phenomenon. “You could release a bird 600 miles away, immediately start driving home, and that bird will be waiting in the roost for you.”

Pigeons are incredible navigators, and scientists still do not fully understand how they are able to find locations with such accuracy. Current theories suggest that pigeons use landmarks, seamarks, the sun and stars, as well as the magnetic field of the earth to find their way around. They are also incredibly fast, and can fly hundreds of miles in a single day. This led to their previous history as postmasters, delivering letters and other important information across towns, states, and even countries.

“There are pigeons that have won war medals for saving many lives,” DeFrancesco says. “They were an integral part of World War I and World War II.” These birds carried vital war messages across enemy lines, and helped share intelligence to the allied forces. However, it is not their history with humans alone that makes this bird at home in the city.

To understand why pigeons have been more successful than any other bird in cityscapes, we need to understand some of their biology. Pigeons historically nest on the side of cliffs, and humans have recreated these landscapes in the form of skyscrapers.

Jerolmack states that “they actually really like concrete, marble and stone, so they prefer to live and build nests not in the trees and shrubs and grass, but alongside buildings.” Pigeons do not just tolerate cities, but seek them out because they provide the perfect breeding habitat. This also means that their natural predators, Peregrine Falcons, are able to thrive in cities as well.

These birds are the only species in North America that breed year-round, and they can often be seen nesting on tall buildings with natural outcroppings like buttresses. Their generalist diet also allows them to be more opportunistic than other bird species. They can eat seeds, insects, and even garbage that humans throw away.

In many cities, there is a sort of “green revolution” happening. People are starting to keep bees and chickens on their roof, and it is considered a very modern and integrative way of thinking about city spaces. Pigeons however, have been excluded from this movement. Jerolmack states that in New York City, the same groups that are pushing for green roofs and urban beekeeping, are making it illegal to keep rooftop pigeons. This makes hobbies like pigeon racing hard to participate in, and exiles these animals as “garbage birds” who are mere nuisances and do not deserve a place in city spaces.

Humans have a wonderful relationship with other creatures we altered like dogs and cats, and we have more in common with pigeons than we would like to admit. They are intelligent animals with incredible abilities, that have simply adapted to a life that we carved out for them. Pigeons are not going away and they are not going “back to the wild”. They are a permanent structure of almost any city in the world, and they deserve at the very least our consideration.